Dougal mac Darragh was obviously a man of means. He had the body of a warrior and the bearing of a noble. Even the cart driver had seen that.
A thief might be tempted to pilfer Dougal’s only weapon for its jewels.
Steal the valuable clothes off his back.
Take him captive with an eye toward ransom.
This time, before he made a mossy bed under a sprawling ash tree, Dougal took extra precautions. It was dangerous enough to be pursued by an angry clan. He wasn’t about to be surprised by a band of outlaws.
Feiyan woke with a start.
“Oh, for shite’s sake,” she muttered.
Her wee nap had turned into an all-day drowse. The sun was long gone. The moon peered through the pines with its pale, round eye, and midnight mist clung to the forest floor.
How much distance had the villain gained while she slumbered on, blissfully unaware? Had he stuck to the path or turned off at some point? She’d wasted the daylight. By night and in the fog, he’d be doubly hard to track.
At least she was fully alert now. If need be, she could pursue him all night.
She hurried along the path. Perhaps she could catch the villain sleeping.
A few hours later, she spotted a scrap of beeswax-coated linen beside the trail, the kind of cloth one wrapped around cheese. Near it were crumbs of pastry. And next to that was a depression in the leafy bank, roughly the size of a knight’s hindquarters.
He had eaten here. How long ago, she couldn’t tell. But this time he’d apparently procured something more palatable than a raw rodent.
This close to the river, the mud was damp and yielding. She could easily discern the tracks of his crack-heeled boot. The food must have invigorated him, for his stride had lengthened. She had to take three steps for his two.
A few times she hesitated, startled by the scuffling of mice or the chirring of a nightjar. But the rising fog muffled her steps as she crept through the woods in the hours after midnight.
Indeed, she was so focused on stealth and speed, intent on closing the distance between her and her prey, when she finally spotted him, she almost sailed past.
Her heart leaped into her throat when she suddenly glimpsed a dark shape in the gray mist, several yards off the path, beneath an enormous tree. For an instant, she thought it was a wolf or a boar, and she clapped a hand to her shoudao.
Then she heard a loud, ragged snore, and she soundlessly drew her blade.
It was him. The monster. She had him now. He was utterly helpless.
As silent as a spider, she approached.
With her sharp blade of folded steel, she could slash his throat. Stab him through the heart. Chop off his head.
But as she came closer—five yards away, four, three—doubt began to filter through her thoughts.
What if this was the wrong man?
She’d never actually seen his face or even gotten a good look at his armor. This man didn’t have a shield or a helm. All she recalled about the brute at Creagor was that he was large and dark and menacing.
What if she’d followed the wrong set of tracks into the wood?
What if the man she sought had abandoned his horse at the croft and then climbed onto the back of a hay cart and gone back the way he’d come?
What if he’d given away his crack-heeled boots, as he had his charger, as a “gift”?
She hesitated, gazing down at the slumbering bulk.
Once she saw his face, she’d know. She’d recognize the manic violence in his cold eyes. The dead and ruthless twist to his mouth. His empty, insatiable hunger. There was no hiding the disturbed countenance of a man capable of thoughtless savagery.
She’d wake him. Poke him with the slanted point of her sword, keeping it at the ready. If he lunged toward her, she’d stop him swiftly. Do what must be done.
She edged closer, wary of triggering any small animal snares he might have set in the night.
His snores were even now. Peaceful. Almost soothing. They didn’t seem like the snores of a demon.
She halfway hoped she was wrong. That this wasn’t the right man.
Hearing the soft sawing of his breath, she knew it would be no simple feat to extinguish it. Taking a life wasn’t easy.
It wasn’t that killing was physically difficult. Even at her young age, she’d been forced to take a handful of lives in wartime. With her skill and fine weaponry, all it